2/27/12 – Monday

NAME ONE OF EMMY’S (future, as yet unborn) BABIES!

Go here to find out how!

And here to see the spreadsheet

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Over at Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza, Nance and I made Pork and Corn Stuffing Bake this week!

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Fred had Friday off, and while I’d like to report that we did lots of fun and exciting stuff on Friday, what we mostly did was run a few errands and then sat on the couch and watched movies, nothing too exciting, just stuff on the Netflix queue. Actually, Fred watched the movies while I lay on the couch and read magazines and played Words with Friends.

Saturday morning started off SUPER fun. We’ve been having an issue with the XBox wherein we’ll be watching a movie and it’ll cut off because the wireless connection has dropped. Which is super annoying if you’re trying to watch a movie you want to see, obviously. So we ordered a cable from Amazon and it arrived Friday, which meant that Saturday morning I had to crawl under the house and take one end from a hole in the floor of the computer room, and wiggle-squirm my way to the other end of the house and pass the cable up the hole in the front room, behind the TV.

It is completely, totally, I am not shitting you, NO FUN being under the house. It’s weird and creepy and cramped. Fred has a strong dislike (I didn’t say “fear”!) for small spaces, and I’m smaller than he is, AND I was willing to do it, so that’s why I was running the cable and he was not. I was able to crawl on my hands and knees for a few short distances, but most of the way I had to wriggle on my stomach to get under the ductwork. The distance from the computer room to the front room isn’t far at all if you’re walking it, but if you’re crawling it, and it’s dark, and you’re wriggling on your stomach, it seems like three miles. I talked encouragingly to myself the entire way, causing Fred to yell “Who are you talking to?!” “MYSELF!” I bellowed. But I wish I’d told him there was a nice man down there with me, I bet that would have creeped him out.

The ground is covered in heavy black plastic, and the only living things under there aside from me were spiders (spiders don’t scare me), and Fred has reported that a lot of Cave Crickets (AKA Camel Crickets, AKA Spider Crickets) live under there and hang out on the “ceiling” (ie, the underside of the floor), but I didn’t see any. Probably because I didn’t look up; I prefer to live in ignorance, thank you. There’s no way for anything bigger than a mouse to get under the house (there are grates on all four sides, and the only way for anything bigger to get in is to go through the door that I went through), but that didn’t stop me from being dead certain that I was going to come face to face with an angry, hissing, possibly rabid possum.

The worst part of the whole thing was getting to the hole at the front of the house, passing up the cable, and then knowing that I had to turn around and go all the damn way back. I was breathing really hard (wriggling like that is HARD WORK. I bet worms have awesome abs.) and I stopped for a moment to rest and put my head down and I thought “I could just stay here forever, I don’t want to wriggle all the way back there” and then I thought “Is this what a panic attack feels like?” and then I thought “Okay, you big fat whiny INFANT, MOVE YOUR ASS” (which is what I often say to myself when I want to get off the elliptical after three minutes), and I wriggled my way back.

I was filthy and my shoulders and knees hurt like a motherfucker, but I got over it and I lived. My shoulders and abs are sore, but I lived.

The best part? I get to do it again next weekend, because when Fred was making the hole that the wires were going through bigger to accommodate the new wire, he cut through the wire that connects my computer to the, uh, whatever the hell it’s called. The magical thing that connects my computer to the internet. I’m currently connecting wirelessly, but I can definitely tell the difference – it’s faster when I’m hard-wired. The new cable will be here this week, and next weekend I’ll be back under the house.

This time I’m taking the camera with me. And I MIGHT even look up. If I see a million cave crickets staring down at me, I’ll probably have a heart attack.

Sunday, we went to the recycling center, and then we went on a scenic drive where we ended up at our favorite feed store and got to look at the animals, which is always fun.

Cute but nope, still don’t want sheep.

Ducks and geese and goats.

I don’t know what kind of ducks these are, but they sure are pretty.

I love llamas. They have such attitude.

This little goat was crying and crying for his mama.

“Maaaamaaaaaa!” Nope, still don’t want goats.

Then we came home and I did laundry and we both hung out with Emmy and then there might have been napping on the couch.

Also, it was sunny all weekend, and we have been NEEDING some sunshine, and I understand it’s supposed to get up into the 70s this week.

I have no complaints about the weather at this juncture.

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No babies yet! We’ve made more progress with her – she ate in front of us, and Fred actually got her interested in playing briefly at one point over the weekend. She still isn’t coming over to us for petting, but I’m sure that’ll happen in time. Right now all she wants to do is eat and sleep. She’s eating pretty much everything we put in front of her, apparently she’s not a picky girl.

NOM.

“I approve of this stuff, lady.”

When the bowl was empty, she sat and licked her lips for a long time.

Then she took a bath.

Then she looked at me.

Then she headed toward her basket and stopped for a rest on the shelf.

She gave Fred a look…

And then settled down in her basket for a long nap in the sun.

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The good news is that Sissy Bear Cub, the cat that Lucy was sharing a cage with at Petsmart, has been adopted. That’s good news because Sissy Bear Cub is a black cat who’s been at Petsmart for a long, long time. The bad news is that now there’s room at Petsmart – which means that later this morning, I’ll be taking Everett to Petsmart to share a cage with Lucy.

There’s a “Top Reasons to Adopt a Black Cat” printout on the outside of Lucy (and now Everett’s) cage that I’m going to reprint with a few of Everett’s jumping pictures included, so maybe that’ll catch someone’s eye and make them take a second look at Everett and Lucy (and Sally in her own cage).

Fingers crossed that all three of the black Peppers are adopted quickly. I have a good feeling about this!

I sure am going to miss Everett and his crazy jumping ways, though.

::grab::

He’s just so CASUAL about being way up there in the air. It seems to take him very little effort at all.

“Ho hum, hanging out here in the air again.”

That right there is an interesting position.

Interpretive dance.

Considering his next move.

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The property next door belongs to a church. When the tornado came through (and passed by about half a mile from us) last April, several trees on the church property fell down, taking some of our trees with them. There was some cleanup on both sides, but there are several dead trees just kind of hanging out on the edge of our property. Last week I glanced out the window and saw Newt exploring.

It’s hard to tell, but he was about fifteen feet up, just kind of checking things out. I see a lot of squirrels run around on those trees, so maybe he was hoping to find a squirrel snack.

He looked around for a few minutes, then turned around and came back down, safe and sound.

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Previously
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: I call it “SHUT THE DOOR! I’M LAYING AN EGG! GOD!!!”
2008: All that said, I can tell you that, somehow, Paula Deen annoys the fucking shit out of me.
2007: Just call me Betty Homemaker.
2006: I swear to god, I have NO CONTROL over what comes out of my mouth sometimes.
2005: No entry.
2004: Dude, what the fuck? I don’t talk for 20 to 30 minutes on the phone to people I know and LIKE, let alone some strange man from the CDC!
2003: A Day in the Life of Mr. Fancypants.
2002: No entry.
2001: But I kinda like the irritability.
2000: My heart stopped, my jaw dropped, and I whispered “Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiit!”